Lightning Hunter

Thanks, I am currently messing around with it! I cannot seem to get the batch file to work, however. No matter where I put the .exe file, it says "The full path of is too long". I edited the batch file to look like this: @echo off SET audioset=c:\RedAlert\HQRA\audioset.exe for /R "%1" %%f in (*.wav) do ( %audioset% "%%~df%%~pf%%~nf" ) But it displays that error when I run it. I'm not good at advanced batch editing; only basic stuff.

Hmm. Well, is is it even possible to use a batch file to deal with multiple files? Don't I still have to copy each filename individually?

Was the issue of unrecognized file names ever resolved? I am trying to convert all the missions from "A New Era", but there are a handful of unidentified SHP files (files like 01f3ff19.shp), and I don't know what to do with them. http://ra.afraid.org/download.php/campaigns/ANewEraV20.zip I read through all these posts, but I do not see a clear way to find the proper file name for these unidentified SHP files.

That's awesome news! I will certainly be releasing a Stereo soundtrack promptly after the release of this tool. Can I make a request for wildcards in the command line tool, so I can perform a batch conversion? I have like 200 WAV files to convert to AUD, so it would take forever if I had to do them one at a time.

Hey Iran, is there a way to get the menu music, credits music, etc. to appear in the playlist? I don't want to add them to music.ini, because I've already used up the 128 entry limit. It seems to me these should be easy to get to appear. Also, did you get my Private Message?

That will be the day! But yes, I tried using Audacity this time to convert the WAV files from stereo to Mono before converting them to AUD in XCC Mixer, and it recognized them all just fine. I guess XCC did not like something about the WAV files created from the other converter I was using... I hope someone can get stereo files working now!

Triple post, but nobody is responding. I realized that XCC mixer is labeling half of the WAV files that I'm trying to convert as an "unknown" file type, which is why they can't be converted to AUD. Other wav files appear as "WAV" and can be converted just fine. I have no idea why this is, since all the files I'm trying to convert are the same format in 48kHz Mono.

Hey Nyerguds, can you explain how you got XCC Mixer to convert 44kHz WAV files to AUD? I noticed a bug in the editor in which some 44kHz WAV files will have the option to "copy to AUD", while other files are blacked out. There seems to be no reason for this. All 48kHz files have the option to "copy as AUD". I think you mentioned some hack that fixes this, but I have no clue how to apply a "one-byte hack". Better yet, if you could just upload the hacked .exe for me, that would be easier...

Well, if we can figure out how to get stereo AUD files, I have the whole soundtrack ready to convert. It would only take a matter of 30 minutes to convert and upload.

So, you've played RA1 since 1991? Impressive. Yes, very impressive indeed - especially considering Red Alert didn't come out yet for another 5 years. XD

Hey Iran, I noticed that with your patch, the music sometimes stops altogether when I load a saved game during gameplay. This does not happen when I load a game from the menu, but If I'm already playing a game and load a previous saved game, the music will stop on occasion. I have "random starting song" enabled, as well as "shuffle" in options. with Nyergud's patch in Tiberian Dawn, the game will randomly pick a new track each time a game is loaded. I think this should be the case in Red Alert also.

Is this your first mission? I will try it out when I get some time!

Well, that's a shame about the GDI campaign, but at least we still get to play the NOD missions! Maybe sometime if you regain interest, you can start a smaller project and release 1 or 2 GDI missions.

Well, I've never messed with Video files, so I wouldn't know. Are you saying we can possibly convert the music to VQA format, and somehow convert that to an AUD file in stereo? Wouldn't we have to extract the sound content from the video file somehow?

Honestly, I have no clue what a VQA encoder is. Are you saying I can currently create Stereo AUD files with it that work in Red Alert? If so, where can I download it?

I actually already did create a high quality soundtrack for Tiberian Dawn and Covert Operations. I just haven't released it yet, because I wanted to see if people cared about the Red Alert version first. The only problem with the Tiberian Dawn version is that I couldn't find high quality versions of Act on Instinct, Stop Them, In Trouble, No Mercy, and Just Do It Up WITHOUT vocals. In my opinion, the CD versions with talking and vocals do not fit in the game. Thus, I feel the original tracks are better, even in lower quality. If someone can find high quality versions of those tracks without vocals, I would include them.

Interesting... That makes sense. Well, if you figure out a way to get Stereo working, I will compile a new version of the soundtrack. I still have all the original files sitting around, and I'd be happy to do it. Well, thank you for adding it! I've already used all 128 music entries in my own personal music.ini file for Red Alert. I imported the music from Dune2000, Tiberium Sun, Red Alert 2, and a few tracks from Red Alert 3 (all in high quality). It's a shame that we can't add more than 128 music files, or I would continue adding more! I've got a completely different themes.ini for C&C95 with all of Frank Klepacki's albums.

I just realized I may have accidentally figured out something that nobody else knows about the .AUD format in C&C. Until this point, it is possible that everyone thought it could only support up to 22kHz. I can see why people would think that, because the .AUD format does NOT support 44kHz! In fact, if I try to convert a 44kHz wave file using XCC Mixer, it downsamples it to 22kHz. Heck, even the readme file of WAV2AUD.exe states the following: I am guessing that nobody has actually tried 48kHz, because it works flawlessly! In reality, 44kHz isn't even an option for this high-quality soundtrack. Upsampling a track to 48kHz is the only way to get the music to play in C&C in high-quality. By the way, I went ahead and made a high-quality version of the menu music, based on the version found on Frank Klepacki's web site. If anyone wants to test the quality of the entire soundtrack, just download this and place it in your Red Alert folder. The Menu music will sound much clearer than the original: https://www.mediafire.com/?hbxzaoiyssaxc45

CD Quality is 44,100Hz, you are correct. I chose 48kHz, because some of the tracks came from sources other than CD, and I wanted to ensure they were converted at the max possible quality. Even if all the files were originally recorded at 44,100Hz (which is possible/likely), it would not impact the quality to convert them to 48kHz. They would sound no different either way (just a slightly larger file sizes). I just wanted to make sure there was no quality loss, no matter what the source was.

XCC Mixer 1.47.

Well, I didn't feel like mentioning all the places I found these high quality tracks, because I've accumulated them over many years. The soundtrack was just one source. The only track that I could not find an original copy of was "Snake". Instead, I used a remastered version that I found on youtube a long time ago. It sounds a bit better than the original. Oh, and I didn't bother finding a high quality version of "Surf No Mercy", because I don't even care about that track. In the end, I believe there are 46 tracks replaced with higher quality versions. This should be all the tracks of Red Alert, Counterstrike, Aftermath, and Retaliation (Minus the menu and victory themes). I made sure that all these tracks sound better than the original (I compared them side by side since I am an audiophile). Maybe I should have just kept this compilation to myself. XD

This pack already includes all the tracks in higher quality (even the expansions music). I got them from many sources (including Frank's web site). For the record, I didn't just take the old tracks and boost the kHz or anything. I converted the high-quality versions to the .aud format, which works in-game (so you don't have to use an external mp3 player or anything like that). I did all the work for people here by seeking the best versions of each track on the internet. I'm surprised more people aren't taking an interest in this thread... I would have thought people wanted a better in-game soundtrack.

I forgot to include "Surf No Mercy" and "No Mercy '98" in the ZIP file. I am currently updating the download link. The original post will be updated in a few minutes with a new download link (I deleted the old download link for now).

Edit: This version if now obsolete. At the time, there was no encoder able to get Stereo Audio files to work (only Mono). A new version has been released with Stereo support, thanks to the program Audioset created by Blade. The new version is here: http://cnc-comm.com/community/index.php?topic=4395.0 I never was pleased with the quality of the .AUD files that came with Red Alert, so I took the liberty today of converting the original high-quality soundtrack to better quality AUD files for use in-game. The original AUD files are 22kHz, 16-bit, Mono. I have updated them to 48kHz, 16-bit, Mono (from the original soundtrack). They sound significantly better in my opinion (especially the drums). Unfortunately, I could not get the files to work in stereo. The C&C .AUD format does not seem to support stereo; only mono. Of course, the original Red Alert soundtrack is also in Mono. As such, the new files still sound much, much better. I uploaded it to Mediafire. Simply unzip all the files to your main Red Alert folder, and they will automatically update the in-game soundtrack. I also included a music.ini file that adds the missing files (this file came from FunkyFr3sh reta-exp-music.zip). There was a strange bug I noticed with FunkyFr3sh's music expansion, in which "Wasteland" would appear in the Red Alert playlist in place of the Crush Remix (I guess Wasteland was previously hidden). Both of them now appear in the playlist. This pack includes high-quality versions of the original Red Alert tracks, as well as all the expansions. Download: https://www.mediafire.com/?a2pkdolc19cdan4

Is the main catalog updated to reflect this change? By the way, nice release, as usual. I always look forward to all your updates.